Great Outdoors Publishing

This Nearly Was Mine
A Journey Through Carlton Country

This is the story beginning in the 1800s in the heartland of Central Florida. This is history of the land and its native inhabitants. Conjointly this is a biographical memoir of the life of Dr. Barbara Castleberry Carlton who borne the idea of the project and tenaciously dug out every historical fact regarding the lives of those who settled this land with love, devotion, and determination, and whose descendants have continued to do so for some two hundred years.

About the Author:
Dr. Barbara Castleberry Carlton leads a life that honors the history of this land and its people, both of which she came to love and cherish as a family doctor. Just out of medical school she cast her lot in the heartland of Florida and never once entertained the idea of going elsewhere. Dr. Barbara says “home is where the heart is” and for her that is at the Bar A Ranch, a few miles west of Wauchula. However, her summers are spent in Cashiers, North Carolina. Her magnanimous generosity and tireless work for her community, state, and country as well as her family and friends, is legend.

Barbara Oehlbeck is a native of North Carolina, however, in the ‘70s, she and husband, Dr. Luther Oehlbeck, became “transplanted” Floridians where they have collaborated in writing and photography.As a fulltime freelance writer Barbara’s work appears in Florida’s statewide Farmer & Rancher Newspaper and she is a frequent contributor to state and national publications.The Oehlbecks live in Muse,where their mail box is over a mile from their country home, which is also home to Danny, Dana, and baby Dusty, the donkeys, as well as handsome native turkeys.

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